The present invention relates to a graphical user interface (GUI) for a website selling products or services over the Internet, and in particular to websites offering products or services from multiple vendors.
Many websites, such as Shopping.com, provide products which are displayed on a single page, with the user being able to click to get to different suppliers for that product (such as new and used 3rd party book suppliers). eBay or Amazon Marketplace, in contrast, list the same item many times, with each supplier having a posting on a separate page.
Amazon Technologies Inc. US Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0144052 shows the Amazon display of multiple sellers of an item. The system described identifies those sellers (1) that are offering the item for sale, (2) whose availability level for the selected item exceeds a predetermined availability threshold, and (3) that have a seller score relating to a number of different items offered for sale by the seller that exceeds a predetermined score threshold.
Catalog City U.S. Pat. No. 7,197,475 is an example of a multi-vendor Internet site. It describes sharing certain facilities among multiple vendors (consumer database, shopping cart facility, checkout facility, etc.). IBM US Patent Application Publication No. 20030023499 describes an automated purchasing system over the Internet which compares products from multiple vendors and automatically selects one. The criteria for selecting can include price, vendor reputation (such as fulfillment history) and shipping times and costs. Deja.com US Patent Application Publication No. 20020107861 is another example of a website that displays a product and includes a list of multiple vendors offering that product using scraper technology. Neomedia Technologies US Patent Application Publication No. 20010054008 describes a system where a user inputs a list of products by entering their bar codes, and a vendor is selected based on criteria such as the number of products on the list available from the vendor, price, proximity to the vendor, availability of delivery, whether the products are in stock, wrapping availability, shipping availability, tracking availability, and a loyalty program.